We have been given to understand that Nepal Prime Minister Babu Ram Bhattarai is a highly qualified citizen of this country. We took it for granted because he is what we have been told. We were also told that he is a strong nationalist. We also consumed it considering that time permitting he could be tested. Last but not the least, we got the information that he is a radical revolutionary and that he wanted to transform the entire Nepali society as per his new theories based on the principles and practices adopted once upon a time by Chairman Mao. We also gulped this believing in PM Bhattarai that he will really transform the “feudal” society, as he and his entire party took it, and make a new Nepal wherein nothing of that sort will remain which his party disliked and conversely wanted or better say preferred to herald in Nepal.
However, things appear not to have gone as per our beliefs and the presumptions that we have had made upon listening to some wise counsels which had been injected in to our brains by our friends and detractors both.
Conversely, what has come to the fore is that Nepali Prime Minister is an introvert person completely ridden with inferiority complex. He smiles rarely.
His drum beat of steering the government complying with strict austerity measures remains now exposed with his picking up of some fifty tom-dick and harry political duffers as ministers for his ever expanding cabinet. The numerical strength of fifty ministers presumably bring some problems even to the Prime Minister as he may not recall the exact names of those whom he has elevated to the ministerial ranks. Jokingly it is said in Kathmandu that the one collides with you while on your evening or morning walk could be a Minister of the Bhattarai cabinet. By extension, what could also be presumed that the every second vehicle that rolls in Kathmandu streets could be of some "honorable" ministers now housed in Bhattarai’s life saving coterie?
Interestingly, Bhattarai prefers criminals to be inducted in his cabinet. The media tell us about this fact.
Now as regards Bhattarai’s strong nationalist credentials. Well, how much he loves his nation has best been exemplified by the pact that he very freshly signed with the Indian government-the BIPPA-nick named Bhattarai’s India Protection and Promotion Agreement. This agreement, apart from the Nepali academic circles, has been taken by his own party comrades as an anti-national deal which has been signed in order to please India so that the Indian blessings will continue to remain in Bhattarai’s favor which in turn could extend his now sinking longevity in government.
After all what could be expected from a JNU 'indoctrinated' graduate?
Unfortunately, prior to signing this anti-national agreement, neither Bhattarai took his own party men in to confidence nor he discussed about the issue with the major political parties. He did it on his own. Introvert persons act at times in a similar manner.
Some even opine that Nepal PM Bhattarai by signing the dangerous BIPPA with the Indian regime has just paid the price of the salt that he may have consumed in tons during his declared and highly exposed hibernation in India under Indian government’s protection. Undeniably Bhattarai was in India during the so called Maoist’s people’s War-a war that he fought against his own motherland which devastated his own country. Look the tryst with destiny.
Nobody knows so far as to what sorts of other pacts Bhattarai may have signed or have assured to his former NOIDA and JNU friends and their ring masters. However, let’s presume that since it is a democracy thus things will surely come to public which eventually would further expose Baburam’s nationalist credentials.
At yet another plane, the sudden and serious talks that the Afghani President Hamid Karzai had with Nepal Prime Minister Bhattarai is no less enlightening.
In fact President Karzai provided a wise counsel to Bhattarai suggesting him in private, on the sidelines of the SAARC Male Summit, to refrain from seeking foreign assistances for the settlement of the Nepali home grown issues and problems.
In doing so, President Karzai may have wanted to sound the immature Nepal Prime Minister not to readily abide by the sermons of his ‘New Delhi’ friends on matters related with Nepal’s Peace and constitution drafting process. Perhaps Karzai in an implicit manner hinted Bhattarai that since he had enough of Indian and others' “support” and thus suggested him not to seek any “valuable” interference in Nepali affairs from the land of his enlightenment.
If so then let’s presume that for Karzai too the Indian helps have already become enough and that he wants no further helps for his country from the Indian side. No help from India is the best help perhaps.
All in all, Nepal PM Bhattarai had a luxury trip to Maldives. He went there and saw the dazzling TUNA fish swimming in the Male high rising waters. For Bhattarai, Dr. Man Mohan Singh’s presence in Male was the beginning and the end of it all.
Back home, Bhattarai’s comrade in arms are not to settle for less. They have already threatened that Bhattarai’s India bend must be exposed and that this was the perfect time to take a revenge that was long overdue.
No wonder that tired of these allegations emanating from his own party seniors, Bhattarai has begun himself floating the idea that Nepal now needed a new national unity government. This does mean that he has already sensed that his sticking to the Chair will further deteriorate the country’s troubled politics more. But is he speaking his inner heart? Perhaps not because the charm of the Chair is more, presumably, desirable to Madame Hisila Yami Bhattarai-the better half of Nepal PM, because it is this Chair which is being used, as reports have it, by Mrs. Bhattarai to penetrate into the government affairs. Some even say that Mrs. Bhattarai is the head of an unconstitutional power center.
All in all, Nepal PM Bhattarai is being questioned from various quarters for his fresh dealing with the Indian establishment. Perhaps it is time for Bhattarai to prove his real nationalistic credentials or else he would definitely be taken as a distinguished Nepali national to have cheated his own motherland in a merciless manner.
(Courtesy: Telegraph weekly, Nepal)
